


Five Times Benton Fraser Accidentally Saw Someone Naked

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Genre: 5 Things, Accidental Voyeurism, M/M, Masturbation, Nudity, Puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and the one time he returned the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Benton Fraser Accidentally Saw Someone Naked

**Author's Note:**

> Since Mort is a Holocaust survivor, the subject comes up in a very non-specific way that is meant to convey respect and dignity. I felt that I should warn for it.

The first time Ben Fraser accidentally saw another person naked, he and Mark Smithbauer were changing in the barn by the pond. Ben hadn’t meant to stare at Mark, or even look. But the confined space didn’t give him much choice, and once he saw Mark’s body, somehow still tan from the summer, the barn dimly lit by the tractor’s lights, the smell of hay and animals all around them….

Ben had experienced physical arousal before, of course. Even to completion, first in dreams that left tangible proof, then through conscious, pleasurable self-exploration. At some point, his grandfather had told him that, while it was a very private and personal act, it was also natural, healthy and, despite what some of their books said, not to be feared or avoided. Ben knew that, someday, he would share those feelings with another person and that, too, would be private and personal while still being natural and healthy. But until he saw Mark’s naked body, the play of muscle and bone under skin, Ben hadn’t really connected that the way he felt when he touched himself could be engendered by the sight another person instead of through sheer physical sensation.

Or that being aroused by another person’s beauty would be so much more powerful and stirring than being aroused by his own touch. It was so surprising that Ben froze, his own cold, damp clothes still on. He didn’t even make the connection between “private and personal” and the fact that he was not in private and was being overly personal with his friend.

Mark looked at Ben before Ben looked away. “Take a picture; it’ll last longer,” Mark said, laughing, and Ben finally turned away to attend to his own clothing. He had no idea what Mark’s words meant in a literal sense, but he knew what the intent was: to warn him, humorously and without too much judgment, that, socially, he was on much thinner ice than that on the pond.

He thought about Mark that night, when he was being very private and personal with himself, and his orgasm overtook him with such power and pleasure that he immediately recognized that this act, at least when combined with thoughts of his friend Mark, actually was potentially dangerous. He forced himself never to think about Mark that way again, because he suspected that if he did he could end up with feelings that _were_ unnatural and unhealthy. Or at the very least, not returned.

*****

The next time Fraser accidentally saw someone naked, it was decades later. By then he’d actually seen several people without the benefit of their clothing, but always under circumstances in which nudity was expected. Communal showers. Sex. Responding to a distress call from a nudist camp. That kind of thing. Accidental voyeurism, however, simply didn’t happen to Fraser until early one morning, thinking he was the first to have arrived and was thus alone in the consulate, he went to investigate noises coming from the downstairs bathroom. The full staff bathroom behind the kitchen, not the public restrooms.

As it turned out, Inspector Thatcher had arrived at work early and was preparing to shower. When Fraser barged in on her, her preparations had, in fact, gotten so far that she had no clothing on and was about to step into the water she’d turned on just as he opened the door.

“Oh, dear,” Fraser said.

“Fuck a duck!” Inspector Thatcher exclaimed. She quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it deftly around her body, so quickly in fact that Fraser had only the briefest glimpse of creamy skin, dark hair and curves that, even when unclothed, still seemed somehow controlled and contained.

“Constable Fraser,” she said, trying to sound calm and in command.

“Sir,” he said. “I didn’t realize you’d already arrived. My apologies,” he told her and removed himself as quickly as possible. Although not before he noticed an evening gown crumpled on the floor and a clean uniform hanging on a hook. Fraser found that he was neither disturbed nor intrigued by the implications.

It was remarkably easy for him to put thoughts of Inspector Margaret Thatcher, RCMP, naked and vulnerable and beautiful, out of mind. Later he would add that bit of non-response on his part and the immediate impulse to shield herself from him, and other, evidence and realize that, despite their kiss and occasional awkward conversations, she and he were never meant to be together in any non-collegial sense. 

Needless to say, neither of them ever spoke of the shower incident, no matter how much later circumstances may have tempted them to bring it up.

*****

Unlike the uneasiness that characterized his relationship with the Inspector, over time, Fraser’s friendship with Ray Vecchio evolved and deepened. At first, Fraser had worried that he might come to rely too heavily on Ray’s good natured friendship, but he soon had a network of neighbors, acquaintances and well-wishers on whom he could draw for information or companionship. Ray Vecchio had a similar network, but, Fraser realized, was just as lacking as Fraser himself when it came to true friends. Ray was able to befriend in Fraser in ways he could not, for varying reasons, connect with anyone else. Like their working relationship, their friendship was a unique blend of circumstances and personal traits that could not be replicated.

One evening, Ray and Fraser went to Octavia Avenue so that Ray could shower and change before they went to a Bulls game. At Ray’s behest, Fraser waited in Ray’s bedroom, door closed against the chaos and other dangers awaiting him in the Vecchio house. Ray was fast in the shower, slipping back into his bedroom in a bathrobe which he casually dropped on the floor so he could put on clean clothes.

Fraser nearly gasped out loud over Ray’s casual actions. Fortunately, he managed to stop himself from making any noise, and Ray’s back was turned to him so Fraser’s momentary discomfort went unnoticed. Ray was cheerfully expounding on what the smart money had to say about the upcoming game, but Fraser’s thoughts spun in another direction entirely.

He had wondered, at times, if his fondness for Ray Vecchio went beyond mere friendship. He had never felt as close to another man, and for that matter, as close to a woman, either. The one great love of his life had been a relationship forged in survival, and all too brief. He’d never had the chance to enjoy Victoria as a day-to-day companion, to know her the way he knew Ray Vecchio. Under the circumstance of their reunion, that probably turned out to be for the best, but it left Fraser unsure of what steady, real love might feel like. Could it be that what he felt for Ray went beyond friendship? Fraser honestly wasn’t sure. He sometimes tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss Ray, but his mind always jumped past the carnal intimacy and took him directly to the aftermath. Sometimes he imagined Ray giving him a pitying look, sometimes the look was icy, but it was never reciprocal. 

His brief glimpse of Ray’s naked body reassured him. He did specifically notice the hollow where the top of Ray’s thigh joined his hip, not as pronounced as the same feature had been on Victoria, but still noticeable and aesthetically pleasing. But Fraser felt nothing beyond abstract appreciation for a human body in fine working condition. There was certainly none of the breathless arousal he’d felt when he’d seen Mark Smithbauer’s nakedness all those years ago. There wasn’t even the awkwardness he’d felt during his mercifully brief encounter with the Inspector. 

After that moment, Fraser never again worried that his feelings for Ray surpassed the acceptable. In fact, he felt that the incident, not even noticed by Ray himself, strengthened their friendship, as Fraser entirely stopped wondering and worrying about what kissing Ray would be like. From then on, Fraser knew, the idea would never come up again.

The Bulls won, in overtime. Fraser suspected that Ray had enjoyed some monetary gain from Chicago’s win, but was too discreet to mention it.

*****

The next time Fraser inadvertently beheld the human form untroubled by clothing was years later, but under somewhat similar circumstances: during preparations for an evening out. Fraser and Mort had arranged to meet at the morgue, once Fraser’s day at the station house was over, so they could enjoy a light supper and a performance of _Anna Bolena_. “Of all of Henry’s wives, she was always the one I wanted to meet,” Mort told Fraser when they got the tickets. 

“I would have liked to have met Katherine Parr,” Fraser said. “Or Catherine of Aragon.”

Mort chuckled. “Of course, the one who wrote books. And the one who won a battle.”

When Fraser stopped by Mort’s domain a few minutes early the night of the performance, Mort was changing from his scrubs to a suit, right in the middle of the morgue. His body was old but not frail; it did not betray the horrors it had seen. Fraser pulled back immediately, before Mort could realize his casual nudity had been seen. Fraser thought of how Mort had once been stripped of everything: clothing, family, dignity. But he had never allowed them to eradicate his identity or humanity.

Fraser waited in the cold, tiled hallway. Mort joined him, looking dapper in his suit, ebullient at the prospect of their evening out. The clothing covering his vulnerable, strong body made him a testament not just to bare survival, but to the survival of his style, grace and joy. The dinner was delightful and if the soprano singing Anna was a little shrill, both Mort and Fraser could forgive her as she saw her difficult role through to its end.

*****

Given the amount of potentially toxic situations, in the literal rather than figurative sense, that Fraser and the new Ray seemed to find themselves in, it was a matter of a few short weeks before Fraser saw the new Ray in the altogether. By then, Fraser was fairly used to seeing other men in stages of undress, but a fully naked man was still a thing apart. 

Fraser was startled by his reaction to Ray’s nudity, however. While the sight of Inspector Thatcher unclothed was more embarrassing than anything else, and Ray Vecchio’s naked body had provoked abstract admiration, and the sight of Mort’s inspired humbled appreciation for a man who had suffered, survived and gone on to live a fully happy life, seeing Ray Kowalski naked was the first time since seeing Mark nude, all those years ago, that a man’s unclothed body actually stirred Fraser to lust. 

He quickly removed himself from Ray’s vicinity with a vague “Oh, dear,” which he hoped conveyed social embarrassment rather than surprised arousal. Fraser strove for self-knowledge, and now he had to examine an entire wealth of feelings he had thought he’d left behind some twenty years earlier. 

Of his reaction to Ray Kowalski’s nudity, he muttered “It should have been the Inspector” to himself, thinking back to having seen her perfectly delightful naked form and being completely unstirred by passion.

“It would have been less unsettling, or at least more pleasant. Or if it had been Miss Vecchio.” Bob Fraser told him in the hall outside the room where Ray was changing. Fraser was surprised that he was surprised that his father had something to say about the whole incident. Although not surprised that his father had, perhaps willfully, misinterpreted his comment about the Inspector. “Still,” his father continued heartily, “you get used to it. Art helped me get over it.”

“Are you speaking of the study of art, or of some northern or other eccentric named Art, Dad?” Fraser asked. He’d learned to be cautious in these conversations. Well, tried to learn to be cautious in these conversations 

His father looked at Fraser oddly. “The study of art,” he said. “Which I had fortunately already undertaken by the time Buck Frobisher suffered that unfortunate bout of paradoxical undressing in the winter of eighty-three. Otherwise, I might have gouged my eyes out. The whole incident was rather disturbing.”

“And dangerous,” Fraser surmised. Exposure and hypothermia were never to be taken lightly.

“Oh, well, it was in Queen’s Park,” Fraser’s father said airily. 

“In Toronto?” Fraser asked. “Outside the Ontario Legislative Building?”

“The same,” Fraser’s father confirmed. “So medical attention was close at hand had I failed to clothe the naked in a timely fashion. The Toronto municipal police are a little leery of the RCMP to this day. Oh, well, jurisdiction can get tricky,” the older Fraser said philosophically and disappeared before Fraser could ask if Frobisher’s “paradoxical undressing” was, in fact, more along the lines of “drunken shenanigans.”

“Helpful as always, Dad,” Fraser muttered. He wondered what to do about his newly discovered erotic leanings for Ray Kowalski, feelings which grew rather than diminished as the weeks passed. He finally decided that parity might be the ticket. He hadn’t sought to make up for having seen Mark, the Inspector, Mort or Ray Vecchio naked by offering them his own nudity, but perhaps it might do in this situation. He could bare himself to Ray and take whatever lumps came his way as a result.

“Remember when you punched me by the lake?” he asked Ray one evening. They were in Ray’s apartment. _Up Close_ was on ESPN, but Ray had muted the volume.

Ray shook his head in self-disgust. “Not my finest hour,” he said.

“I was thinking more of how your sense of justice, of righting the scales, led to my returning the blow,” Fraser explained. “Which, incidentally, I do not consider my finest hour either.”

“It made me feel better,” Ray said.

“Its only redeeming virtue,” Fraser opined. “But I was thinking of this concept of fairness you cherish. Even-steven.”

“Do _not_ give me a lecture about how I have playground morals or ethics or whatever, Frase.”

Fraser considered this. “Well, in that instance you did,” he said honestly. “But it was, perhaps, fitting,” he added quickly. 

Ray did not look particularly mollified. “You goin’ somewhere with this?” Ray asked impatiently. “Like, really, anywhere? At all? Anytime soon?”

Fraser stood up from the couch and began disrobing. Ray’s eyes bulged in confusion.

“I saw you in the altogether a few weeks ago, Ray,” Fraser confessed as he pulled his Henley off. 

“Oh, yeah, the vat of hair product. That shit had _bird placenta_ in it, Fraser. Of course I wanted out of those clothes as soon as I could.”

“Of course you did. Perfectly reasonable reaction,” Fraser agreed since he didn’t want to offer opinions about the probable ingredients in Ray’s preferred hair care product lines. Instead, he attacked his pants. In a rare moment of clumsiness for an act that should have been simple through implicit memory alone, he fumbled the fasteners. “But I thought perhaps a quid pro quo was in order,” he continued as he finally undid his fly. He quickly pushed everything off and stood before Ray, naked to the eye.

“Even-steven,” Ray said, his voice cracking a little. His face showed a variety of expressions as he looked at Fraser’s body. Objective admiration, affection, surprise and…oh, thank God, approval and possibly even arousal.

“Tit for tat,” Fraser agreed.

“I gotta tell you,” Ray said, and Fraser dearly hoped the calm in his voice was deceptive. “I’m likin’ what I’m seein’. A whole lot. That the outcome you were gunnin’ for?”

“I was hoping to ascertain….” Fraser broke off as Ray glowered at him. “Pretty much,” he admitted.

Ray reached for the collar of his T-shirt, pulling it off quickly, showing Fraser the lean muscles of his arm, the pale skin, the dark tattoo.

“Now I’m gonna give you some quo,” Ray said. “Then you’ll owe me quid.”

“It has the danger of becoming a feedback loop,” Fraser said breathlessly as Ray reached for the button on his jeans.

“A sexy feedback loop,” Ray promised.

It ultimately became a promise they both did their utmost to keep. The feedback loop lasted for years stretching into decades, twisting across several states and provinces. Plus a half-dozen countries outside the northwestern hemisphere.


End file.
